I hate Avvo.com. I used to love it. I used to tell my clients to spend as much money on Avvo as they can. They were getting great results from it, but everything’s changed. And now I hate it, and I think you should hate it too.
What is a Avvo?
Avvo.com is one of the biggest legal directories in the United States.
It’s a service that has tons of lawyers, tons of lawyer ratings and lists them by practice area for every city and state across the country. It was founded in 2006 and is now owned by this company called Internet Brands, which owns a bunch of different, well, internet brands. One of the most famous that you’ve heard of is a company called WebMD. They are also owned by the same company as Avvo.
Why is Avvo such a big deal? And why would I make a whole video dedicated to it?
Well, it used to be the case, over the last five or six years, that if you ever searched “estate planning attorney in,” or “family law attorney in,” or “personal injury lawyer in,” or “criminal lawyer in,” and you put your city at the end of that, Avvo would show up as a top result on the Google search page. But all that has changed.
What changed?
The answer is Google.
Google is eating the internet, and it’s really impacting Avvo. It also means you need to really think hard about where you spend your hard-earned marketing money.
It used to be the case that Avvo showed up high in searches. But Google now occupies all of that great search real estate. Google now has their local service ads, their pay-per-click ads.
They have their map and then the traditional organic results, where Avvo barely shows up and to quote the great Ricky Bobby, “If you ain’t first, you’re last.” And Avvo is now last.
Why do I hate Avvo so much?
The answer is simple. Fewer people actually visit the Avvo website, but at the same time they’re charging a lot more for their services. I used to recommend our clients spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on Avvo. For almost everyone, we’ve moved that to zero.
Not only is Avvo more expensive than it used to be, you get less results for your money, and every change Avvo has made has been bad for you as a firm. They’ve increased their prices, made stricter contracts, and deliver far fewer results than they did just a couple of years ago.
What does this mean for you?
I used to be a huge fan of Avvo, but now avoid it like the plague. Nothing they do is beneficial to you as a lawyer.
And if you’re thinking about advertising on Avvo, I encourage you to take your hard-earned marketing dollars and put them into places where they’re going to get a much higher return on investment.
What Avvo has done over the last few years is only good for their bottom line but terrible for you as the law firm owner. They’ve increased their prices and made their contracts ridiculously strict, and on top of that, they deliver fewer customers for even more money.
If I were a hard-working law firm owner like you, I would avoid Avvo completely. The internet world is always changing. It’s confusing. People are always giving you different types of advice.
I know you went to law school, not internet marketing school. If you have questions about what platforms make the most sense and where you should invest your hard-earned marketing dollars, contact us.
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